The Need for Speed, for the Love of God in "Senna"

One of the biggest names in Formula 1 racing, Ayrton Senna was 34 years old when a well-placed blow from a suspension shaft ended his life on Tamburello curve at the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy.

Asif Kapadia's expertly orchestrated documentary/biography condenses the breakneck decade leading up to its subject's apotheosis on May 1, 1994. It begins with Senna's arrival in Europe after a karting career in his native Brazil and is overcast with foreboding even for the viewer who doesn't already know Senna's fate.

There are also home movies of Senna often traversing the waterways of Brazil and usually accompanied by a passel of women. The footage is silent; the private man is left inscrutable, his public life defined by narration from offscreen relatives, competitors, and commentators. Senna appears also in his own words in candid interviews, talking about his favorite subjects: his faith in God and his skepticism toward the politics of F1 racing.

Fearless when jockeying for position on the track, Senna vocally disdained the F1 world's backroom political maneuvering. Archrival Alain "The Professor" Prost is depicted, in contrast, as the ultimate insider, backed by the head of the sport's governing body, Jean-Marie Balestre, a caricature of French chauvinism. Kapadia has a tendency to increase Senna's stature by diminishing his rivals'. It is implicit that Senna's anti-authority streak endeared him to the disenfranchised back home — a folk-heroic status that reaches an emotional crescendo when Senna wins the Brazil Grand Prix with his car stuck in sixth gear, a physical effort so great that his fingers must be pried from the wheel.

The Brazil win epitomizes Scripture's suffering-with-joy; earlier, Senna claims to have encountered God in his cockpit at the Suzuka Circuit. It is a cynical truism that professional athletes are divided between egomaniacs and religious zealots, but Kapadia treats Senna's conflation of Catholic fundamentalism and state-of-the-art speed respectfully, so much so that Senna approaches the feel of a religious artwork: The aura of a life lived in extremis, undergirded by faith, clings to the film. Even nonbelievers in Senna's sport and church will find it difficult to visit Kapadia's cinematic shrine without emotion.